


Left Behind

by ShatrisLerran



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Gen, Lessa (mentioned), POV Third Person, Question Song, Translation in English
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-20 03:41:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2413661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShatrisLerran/pseuds/ShatrisLerran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the 8th Pass the five Weyrs were gone and only the Benden Weyr had to stay.<br/>POV of Benden Weyrleader.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [BlackRook](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackRook/pseuds/BlackRook) and Eclipse Bloodmoon for beting and to [monicawoe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/monicawoe/pseuds/monicawoe) for final corrections.
> 
> [Русский вариант | Original version in Russian](http://samlib.ru/s/shatris_l/pern_fanf_1.shtml)

_"Of Benden, only the Weyrleader himself was privy to these meetings._  
 _Because Benden was the only Weyr in Lessa's time, it must remain_  
 _ignorant, and intact, until her time."_  
 _(C) "Dragonflight" by Anne McCaffrey_

Kirana was slowly going down to the Lower Caverns of Benden when a young blue rider who had been recently sent east on patrol rushed towards her. 

She was preparing to chide him for his untimely return when the young man cried out, "Lady Kirana, my lady..." he faltered, speechless with excitement. "A drum message has come from the Fort Hold: the Fort Weyr is empty! All dragons, all people have disappeared, as if they were never there at all! And the day before yesterday all were there! Now only herdbeasts remain..." his voice broke. 

Kirana looked at him mistrustfully."G'tan, the drumrolls can contain errors, and..."

"My lady!" The blue rider was unable to restrain himself and cut her off. "I didn't believe it at first so I flew to the Fort myself. There is nobody! They've disappeared!"

"No, it's impossible," Kirana denied. "I must make sure myself that it's not a joke. T'ron and Mardra aren't inclined to adventures. "Arinath!" she called her queen, roared "Talk to Loranth, dear, I want to know what's happening there."

"I can't hear Loranth," the answer from the golden queen came a moment later. "And Fidranth doesn't answer! And nothing from known dragons in the Fort!" Arinath screamed an indignant roar, the tone of which got a response from other Benden dragons.

"Call the Weyrleader!" Kirana ordered. "We should check everything before informing other Weyrs!"

* * *

Arinath's call reached T'rel and Palinth over the Lemos Hold, where the Weyrleader had flown out on training with a firestone. Lately he went out of his way to avoid Kirana, afraid to let out the five Weyrs' plans about going to the future. Or maybe Palinth would spill the secret. It was especially difficult for the bronze to evade questions from his golden mate, who was very concerned about the constant Weyrleader's visits to Fort Weyr. Although T'rel refused to participate in the last meetings where details of the removal were discussed.

"Otherwise I won't look surprised when you disappear, " he told the rest Weyrleaders. It was very difficult to accept the fact that he and his Weyr wouldn't go anywhere... Or anywhen... No matter what the others would decide. The Weyrwoman from the future had decided for all of them claiming definitively that only Benden Weyr would exist during the whole Long Interval. Fate and a lack of choice caused T'rel lose his temper. He almost envied the others, whose existence would gain real meaning in battles with the Threads, while he and his descendants were bound to vegetate for the next four hundred years.

"I wish I'd never listened to Lessa!" he thought once again and Palinth roared in agreement.

"But who could have imagined what she would tell the council in the Fort. T'ron, as always, hadn't warned any of us about anything..."

"Arinath says that a message came that Fort Weyr has emptied. Kirana wishes to make sure of it and calls us back, to Benden," the bronze dragon told his rider. T'rel shuddered in understanding- it would be necessary to pretend, to look as surprised as the others. Messages from the other holds would come very soon. And all that time he would have to restrain himself, right until the end and never admit to anybody that he was the only rider that knew exactly what had happened to the other five Weyrs.

"Even to Kirana and Arinath?" Palinth asked ,"After all, they've guessed we were hiding here." 

"Yes, even to them. Let's go home, to Benden!" T'rel decided that it was impossible to stay away any longer; it would seem suspicious. The bronze exhaled the rest of his flame upwards, into the sky clean of Threads, and transferred into black Between.

* * *

Months passed by, rumors continued to increase, people made assumptions and couldn't find any answers. Even searches of the Southern Continent ,deserted since the second Pass, hadn't revealed anything. T'rel stubbornly kept silent, though the quarrel with Kirana had nearly cost him the Weyrleadership during the last mating flight because the hostility of the rider had been transferred to her dragon. But Palinth proved again that he was the fastest and the most agile bronze in the Weyr Benden . Arinath had already laid three dozen eggs on the Hatching Ground. Not as many as usual, but quite normal for the Interval.

"The Long Interval," Benden Weyrleader mentally corrected himself, preparing to fly.

The unsaid knowledge gave him no rest, burnt inside of him likefire. T'rel became irritable, gloomy and unsociable, his own wingleaders started to avoid him. Kirana simply could not stand him at all. Sometimes he amused himself envisioning how the future Benden Weyrleader would deal with vainglorious T'ron and gloomy T'kul, how they would fight the Threads again, and maybe this time they'd get themselves killed. His own existence and the existence of other weyrfolks seemed more and more dreary and useless.

"All I can do…is do nothing. Just carry out the routine duties of the Weyrleader as long as my destiny allows. Alas, Lessa didn't say how long I would suffer. For surely there are names of Weyrleaders and dates of their life and death in the future Archives. Perhaps, it would be easier if I knew..."

Palinth roared, protesting his rider's gloomy thoughts. And the rider roused himself. They were going to the Fort - Fort Hold, he had to remember that - for the regular Turn's End Meeting, and he had to pull himself together.

T'rel went up to the table where the Lords had settled, leading Kirana hand in hand, and noticed that there were no unnecessary chairs this time. Previously, the holders had forgotten that only one Weyrleader would come, and it had been very awkward. The Weyrleaders of Benden sat down at the table. Kirana smiled and briskly started the conversation with the Lady of the Fort while T'rel kept silence.

After a while, the harpers put aside their instruments and Masterharper Varten went on stage. He raised up his hand, calling for attention. Conversations faded.

"I wish to present a new song. It will be included in the Teaching Ballads, and your children will begin learning it starting tomorrow... But you, weyrleaders... Weyrleader T'rel," -– and now the rider shuddered and strained, understanding that the Masterharper had intentionally erred. "And you, my dear Lords-holders, will hear this song first".

Silence hung in the hall. Varten took a guitar and strummed the first chords. These unusual chords filled the room, stirring up feelings, weaving a disturbing spell of unease. And the words were unsettling too:

  
_Gone away, gone ahead,_  
 _Echos roll unanswered._  
 _Empty, open, dusty, dead._  
 _Why have all the Weyrfolk fled?_

_Where have dragons gone together_  
 _Leaving weyrs to wind and weather_ ,  
 _Setting herdbeasts free of tether_ ;  
 _Gone, our safeguards, gone, but whither_? 

_Have they flown to some new weyr_  
 _Where cruel Threads some others fear_?  
 _Are they worlds away from here?_  
 _Why, oh why the empty weyr?_  


T'rel listened to the Question Song, promised by Lessa, with clenched fists, and for the first time he thought that he and the Masterharper should get drunk together.. Somewhere, where nobody would find them. Or somewhen. If the future was forbidden to them, it could be possible to return to the past, at least for a short while. And to get drunk, with Benden wine, naturally. Let the others think of the Questions of the Song. It would be a long, long time before people found the Answers.

**Author's Note:**

> (c) "Question Song" lyrics by Anne McCaffrey


End file.
